Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Andy is the producer The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and previously of the New York Times' groundbreaking podcast The Daily.

 

During the riots and racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd, newsrooms were roiled by existential questions: Should journalists be activists? Do white male journalists hide behind "objectivity" to impose their bias? Do they get coddled by media companies who hide their misdeeds, or do they suffer extra scrutiny as targets for the social-justice mob?

 

Andy was in the eye of the storm. He'd been snapped up by the world's most powerful newspaper to grow its audio division, co-creating The Daily and other celebrated podcasts like Caliphate and Rabbit Hole.

 

Then, in a life-altering cancel-culture frenzy, he lost it all.

 

Andy is in Sydney for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where he and Josh spoke together on a panel, "Speaking Bluntly: Identity politics in journalism". He stopped by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to share his incredible tale, warts and all.

Andy's new podcast is Reflector.

 

This full conversation is 2h14m long. To hear it in all its glory, and to get more thought-provoking, ad-free episodes, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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Can great TV & movies help us overcome political polarisation? Is being creative the same as being open-minded? Why are artists sometimes blinkered?

 

Emile Sherman is the Academy Award-winning producer of Heartstopper, Slow Horses, The King’s Speech, Top of the Lake, The Power of the Dog, Anthony Hopkins' latest film, One Life, and much more.

 

His new podcast, The Sandbox, interviews the key creatives behind his biggest shows and films about their creative process. His other podcast is Principle of Charity

 

If you’re on the free Uncomfortable Conversations podcast then this is a delightful twenty-odd-minute preview of the full conversation. Or enjoy the ninety-minute-plus intellectual adventure in all its Oscar-worthy glory by scoring your own primo podcast feed at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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What should you make of comparisons between the present day and the 1930s? Is the greatest risk that we're sliding towards Nazi-style fascism? Or that we're being drawn into a civil war where half the country are villains?

 

Dennis Glover has a PhD in History from King’s College Cambridge and works as a professional speechwriter and author. He has written policy and speeches for many of Australia's most influential left-wing politicians including Julia Gillard and Kim Beazley.

 

He's the author of The Art of Great Speeches, Orwell’s Australia, An Economy is Not a Society, and The Last Man in Europe, a novel about George Orwell.

 

His new book is "Repeat: A Warning from History". 

 

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Two of the internet’s most intellectual contrarians sit down in a park with Josh. Magic ensues.

 

Jesse is among the world's most astute analysts of internet nonsense. He became a lightning rod when his 2018 Atlantic cover story was the first deeply reported mainstream article to question child transgender medicine.

 

His punishment was swift and severe, driving him into the netherworld of Podcastistan where his hit show with Katie Herzog, Blocked and Reported, analyses the pieties and group think of internet tribes. His own Substack is here.

 

Today's other guest is the most articulate, clear-headed contemporary thinker on race and social justice, tribalism and civil rights. He's been on The View, Real Time with Bill Maher and Joe Rogan. He's triggered a backlash from social justice warriors at the Ted conference with a Ted speech that transgressed racial taboos by calling for colourblind equality. His podcast is Conversations with Coleman and his Substack is here.

 

This episode is the audio of a YouTube video shot in New York City in early spring. Check it out here. It’s cool. (Oh, and subscribe to the YouTube channel, silly.)

 

Get tickets to see me and Coleman live in Melbourne here or at the festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney here.

 

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Why do some people have strong moral opinions but don't act on them, while other people effect real change?

It's a question Josh wanted to ask Australia's most influential athlete-turned-politican. David Pocock was a rugby champion who played for Australia's national team, one of the world's most iconic rugby sides.

He then became the first senator not aligned with any major political party to represent the Australian Capital Territory. He was one of the most prominent faces in a tsunami of independents who annihilated the ruling conservative government. The billionaire backer of that political revolution, Simon Holmes à Court, had a fascinating conversation on this show which you should listen to here

You don't neeeeed to hear Holmes à Court before listening to this episode, but it's a bloody great chat so you might as well.

Josh's conversation with The MeatEater, Steven Rinella, which Senator Pocock refers to at the start, can be heard here

Senator Pocock grew up in a white family in Zimbabwe in the 1990s before moving to Australia in his teens. He and Josh discuss his anti-racism, his activism, why Aussies gamble so much, what the purpose of sport is, and whether it's time to do away with the two-party system.

If you're new to this show and you're a fan of Dave Pocock's, here are a few other episodes you might want to check out:
Sam Harris
Megan Phelps Roper
Douglas Murray Live
Tim Minchin

Needless to say, subscribe to the show in your podcast app and on YouTube if you dig it.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has chosen her running mate… and it isn’t one of the swing-state governors her pollsters were recommending.

 

Josh is surprised, impressed, and uncharacteristically chipper about what this means for Harris, for the election and for the future of the American left. Cheer up and dive in to everything you need to understand about the possible fiftieth vice president of the United States, Tim Walz.

 

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DON'T MISS COLEMAN HUGHES AND JOSH LIVE IN MELBOURNE! GET TICKETS NOW AT https://bit.ly/Coleman-Szeps-Melb

 

Vaccine mandates. Wokeness in Hollywood. The female pay gap. Race protests. Diversity programs. Covid lockdowns. #metoo. The so-called intellectual dark web tackled it all. A loose grouping of dissenting intellectuals and commentators, they sought to buck taboos and open minds.

 

What happened? Who went down the rabbit hole to crazy town, and who maintained thier heads? And where is the space for sane dissent today?

 

Dr Jamie Roberts is a political philosopher and university lecturer who has ruffled feathers by openly admiring some of what the IDW was trying to do -- and even teaching college classes on it. His new book is "The Way of the Intellectual Dark Web: What Joe Rogan and his associates can teach us about political dialogue". He and Josh perform a real-time post mortem on a still-metastasising movement.

 

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Have you ever wondered what’s up with Earth? Seriously. What the actual heck. Of all those trillions of space rocks, this one is all leafy and watery and lifey. What is it, this spaceship we’re on, this pale blue dot? Might it be a kind of living thing itself?

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This old hippy idea has been wrestled into a more fascinating, harder-headed thesis by the scientist and journalist Ferris Jabr. He's written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, National Geographic, Wired and The Los Angeles Review of Books; and he’s a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and Scientific American. His new book is “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life”.

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If your idea of a good time is listening to a couple of nerds geeking out on evolution, the cosmos, consciousness, and what happened to woolly mammoths, this is the episode for you, baby.

 

To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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Project 2025, technically the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a set of sweeping policy changes to be enacted on Day One of the next conservative administration. If Trump wins, that’s January 20th, 2025. Skye Perryman is one of the project’s leading opponents.

 

She’s the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a non-profit that promotes democracy through court cases, lobbying and education. Washingtonian magazine named her one of this year’s Most Influential People Shaping Policy and her legal work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Skye and Josh debate what really matters in the stoush over Project 2025 and what Trump Round Two might look like.

 

This episode is a taste of a longer conversation. To hear the full chat and get more Uncomfortable Conversations content, head to: https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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How do you escape the shaming of the mob when you're a public figure with original ideas?

 

Tim Minchin is one of the most successful creatives Australia has ever produced. He wrote the music and lyrics for Matilda the Musical, which won more Olivier Awards than any other show in history at the time. Now in its 13th year, the show continues to sell out on the West End. The Broadway production was nominated for a stash of Tonys. The 2022 movie version is a riot.

 

Minchin went on to write the Broadway stage musical Groundhog Day, which scored seven Tony Award nominations and won the Olivier for Best New Musical.

 

Tim has starred in massive arena shows like Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, and sells out stadiums with his own blend of music, comedy, and musical comedy. He co-wrote and starred in the hit television comedy show Upright and he's a staple on the biggest TV talk shows.

 

But he's been most influential as a thinker, rationalist and activist -- as a New Atheist, a Defender of the Enlightenment and a Renaissance Man. He often finds himself at odds with the progressive wing of the artistic scene... cautious about being cancelled, but compelled to call out the bullshit he sees.

 

Due to copyright, we aren’t able to include the full versions of the songs mentioned in this podcast, but I urge you to listen if you’re unfamiliar with Tim’s work:

 

White Wine In The Sun
https://youtu.be/fCNvZqpa-7Q?si=dTedPJk58G54Ikza

When I Grow Up
https://youtu.be/6Y82wktAEmQ?si=gVaVtvQIO1f8jCEB

Woody Allen Jesus

https://youtu.be/_SFdUJLebzU?si=1-rBM5ht7xt85V1S   

 

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